Relief For That Pain At The Pump

It's Only A Penny And A Half, But More Is Likely In Next Few Weeks

(CBS/AP)  Finally, a break for consumers at the gas pump.

"Gasoline prices fell a penny-and-a-half in the past two weeks. Self-serve regular is now $2.93 a gallon," gasoline market surveyor Trilby Lundberg told CBS Radio News. "It's the first drop since February."

The nationwide Lundberg Survey of roughly 7,000 gas stations, published Sunday, covered the period from May 6 through May 19.

Self-serve regular was down from about $2.95 two weeks ago.

"Wichita, Kansas, had the lowest average price at $2.59 per gallon, and San Diego had the highest at $3.40," Lundberg said.

That's not as good as the 29 cents a gallon for which a station in Hammond, Indiana, was selling gas last Friday. One of the Marathon station's pumps malfunctioned, and it took the clerk 90 minutes first to notice the problem and then to get it fixed.

"I was really confused," clerk Nida Tayyab said. "It was so messed up. I can't explain here how it was."

She said the station had about five times as many customers as usual during the hour-and-a-half of cheap gas.

For the rest of the country, the average price of mid-grade was $3.03 a gallon, down from $3.04. Premium hit $3.13 a gallon, compared with $3.14 two weeks ago.

Gas prices have climbed more than 70 cents since Feb. 24, when self-serve regular was $2.24.

Among the reasons for the drop, Lunderg says, are "there is more gasoline supply, plus slightly lower crude oil prices. On the gasoline supply side, stocks are higher, refining utilization rates are higher, imports were rolling in."

However, there could be another spike down the road.

"Nobody really expects any important crash in crude oil prices any time soon, because of strong world demand growth and because of the great concerns about supply in several oil-producing countries," she said.

But for now, the trend appears downward.

"What we have here is a much more likely further drop in the price than a rise, assuming crude oil prices don't jump and refining capacity is not hurt," Lundberg said.